European Union enlargement: A Euro Babel in waiting?

By Joe L. Spartz

JAKARTA (JP): Following the recently concluded European Union summit meeting in Helsinki, the official list of new member candidates, including Turkey, has now been extended to 13 which could ultimately increase EU member countries from 15 to 28.

Subject to meeting strict EU admission conditions, a first intake of new members over the next three to five years could include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Slovenia and Estonia.

A second batch of new member candidates with whom detailed admission conditions are to be negotiated starting next February would include Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Malta and Turkey.

Sooner or later, other European countries such as Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and why not Kosovo, can be expected to seek admittance.

Even after excluding other European countries such as Iceland, Norway, Ukraine or Belarus, the European Union may ultimately include some 35 countries, a feat which not even Napoleon could have conceived in his wildest dreams.

While the proposed EU enlargement is hailed by political leaders and eurocrats alike as a momentous milestone in the history of Europe, its full impact and consequences still need to be fully understood by the citizens of the existing member states and who, rather undemocratically, were not even consulted in the first place.

Translating a monumental political decision into acceptable and workable realities will be a herculean task for which existing EU institutions are not prepared or are insufficiently prepared and the proposed EU enlargement may very well contain the seeds of its own implosion or disintegration.

Absorbing a dozen or so economically underdeveloped and ethnically diverse new members would be outright utopian and render the EU, already beset by "subsidiarity" related exceptions, national veto rights, high unemployment, lack of fiscal harmonization, a yet to be fully implemented euro currency or a disastrous agricultural policy, virtually unmanageable.

Astronomical agricultural and structural development subsidies alone, not to mention an unprecedented influx of cheap labor would not only overtax the EU's resources but also place an impossible burden on its cumbersome, inefficient and often wasteful bureaucratic and political institutions.

One does not have to be a "euroskeptic" to seriously question the direction in which the EU is headed or whether this will be the end of a Europe as we know it.

To start with, the free and unhindered movement of people within an enlarged union will in all likelihood open the floodgates for untold millions, seeking employment or simply a better life in existing member countries already beset by serious unemployment problems.

Countries such as France or Germany have so far not been able to fully integrate existing ethnic minorities and a further influx beyond a certain limit will inevitable strengthen already well entrenched nationalistic feelings and xenophobic resentments.

Fears that an enlarged EU would dilute Europe's identity and cohesiveness have already been voiced by no less than the president of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, and even Romano Prodi, the commission's president, now concedes that there is a need for public debate as to where the frontiers of Europe should lie.

A case in point would be Turkey with less than 5 percent of its territory situated in Europe and whose candidature was rather reluctantly and following an earlier refusal accepted for strictly political reasons.

An enlarged EU will definitely affect the daily lives of all citizens in the existing member countries and the sad fact remains that neither national politicians nor unelected eurocrats have thought it necessary to seek their assent prior to committing Europe's future.

If the proposed EU enlargement, together with a realistic assessment of its impact and related costs had been put to a vote, a massive rejection could have been expected.

A first obstacle to overcome by an enlarged EU would definitely be the problem of communication amid a Babel of languages.

With an official 11 national languages already to cope with, the translation of mountains of documents or endless meetings and sessions has already reached nightmarish proportions.

With almost 2,000 full-time translators and interpreters as compared to only 400 or so for the entire 185 member United Nations, the European Union already maintains the largest translation staff in the world.

Including logistics and support staff, the EU's language service employs almost 4,000 people or more than 10 percent of its entire personnel and it is anybody's guess by how much this would further increase by the addition of new member countries.

Unless a single language such as English can be adopted as the sole lingua franca, a Babel of languages may ultimately turn out to be the grain of sand that brought an enlarged EU engine to a standstill.

Another major problem would be the implementation of a workable decision-making process and in which the national interests of dissenting countries would be sufficiently considered.

As evidenced by Britain's recent rejection of a 20 percent tax on savings and investment, key EU legislation can be easily derailed by any one country using its national veto right.

Veto rights were originally intended to safeguard and protect each member country's vested national interests.

These, however, would need to be abolished and replaced by a simplified majority voting system if policy decisions by an enlarged EU membership were to be made possible but which as a result may cause unwanted legislation to be imposed on minority voting member countries.

Other consequences of an enlarged EU in terms of political, economic, social and financial costs, not to mention difficult to reconcile ethnic and cultural differences, still remain to be assessed and explained in detail by European politicians to their respective electorates.

In order to qualify for EU membership and to meet EU's strict admittance criteria, significant and often painful reforms have been undertaken by new member candidates.

Irrespective of reforms achieved, however, huge gaps in terms of economic infrastructure and development or standards of living and income levels will persist.

Economic restructuring and development costs necessary to give newcomers at least a fighting chance against unbridled competition from developed western member countries will be astronomical and a significant portion of funds required would have to be provided by already heavily strained EU development budgets.

If the German reunification experience is anything to go by, a far-reaching and painful dismantlement of inefficient industries and business entities will be unavoidable with increased unemployment and hardships for years to come.

Another important question is how a future enlarged EU is to be managed.

To start with, the size of the existing European Parliament would have to be adjusted in order to accommodate new members and national voting rights would have to be brought into line with existing realities.

Germany's voting rights for instance are only five times those of Luxembourg and significantly reduced voting rights would need to be imposed on smaller member countries.

Over the years, EU institutions and bureaucracies have churned out countless rules, regulations or guidelines which in many instances would not be applicable or implementable in new member countries.

EU bureaucracies have often been ridiculed in the past for inane regulations such as the standardization of tomatoes and cucumbers or common norms for lawn mowers, but the fact remains that an in-depth clearing and weeding out of the EU legislative jungle should be a priority.

Managing an enlarged EU with a population of up to half a billion people will be a formidable task which existing institutions and bureaucracies cannot be expected to cope with without a complete top-to-bottom overhaul and reorganization.

Bureaucratic euromonsters, feeding on itself or institutions riddled with political appointees and entrenched eurocrats would need to be reassessed in accordance with basic management criteria applicable to business corporations such as competence and professionalism and reorganized as necessary from ground up.

By opening EU admission gates to large numbers of economically backward and ethnically diverse countries, not all candidates can be expected to make the grade and an indefinite delaying or refusal of admission could possibly lead to political instability and other problems in the countries concerned.

Countries who do make the grade, however, cannot expect miracles overnight or to ignore sacrifices to be made.

A gradual admission system in which full EU membership would be granted in stages only may have been a more realistic alternative for all parties concerned or avoided some of the indigestion following the EU political expansion bulimia.

Last but not least, an EU enlargement with far-reaching and still to be assessed consequences should be decided by the people concerned and not over their heads by politicians who may no longer be around when the curtain finally comes down.

The writer is a business consultant based in Jakarta.